Larry Hammer (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
larryhammer) wrote2019-02-04 08:50 am
larryhammer) wrote2019-02-04 08:50 am
“The musk-rose, and the well-attired woodbine, / With cowslips wan that hang the pensive head”
For Poetry Monday, another modern sonnet, this from 1928:
I Am In Need of Music, Elizabeth Bishop
I am in need of music that would flow
Over my fretful, feeling fingertips,
Over my bitter-tainted, trembling lips,
With melody, deep, clear, and liquid-slow.
Oh, for the healing swaying, old and low,
Of some song sung to rest the tired dead,
A song to fall like water on my head,
And over quivering limbs, dream flushed to glow!
There is a magic made by melody:
A spell of rest, and quiet breath, and cool
Heart, that sinks through fading colors deep
To the subaqueous stillness of the sea,
And floats forever in a moon-green pool,
Held in the arms of rhythm and of sleep.
As you might expect given the subject, multiple composers have set this to music.
---L.
Subject quote from Lycidas, John Milton.
I Am In Need of Music, Elizabeth Bishop
I am in need of music that would flow
Over my fretful, feeling fingertips,
Over my bitter-tainted, trembling lips,
With melody, deep, clear, and liquid-slow.
Oh, for the healing swaying, old and low,
Of some song sung to rest the tired dead,
A song to fall like water on my head,
And over quivering limbs, dream flushed to glow!
There is a magic made by melody:
A spell of rest, and quiet breath, and cool
Heart, that sinks through fading colors deep
To the subaqueous stillness of the sea,
And floats forever in a moon-green pool,
Held in the arms of rhythm and of sleep.
As you might expect given the subject, multiple composers have set this to music.
---L.
Subject quote from Lycidas, John Milton.
no subject